Education can be the great equalizer, the tool with which government can ensure more opportunities for its citizens, a more intelligent and socially conscious society, even a more productive and diverse economy. Senators John Kerry and John Edwards understand the importance of education, and they have a plan to make the quality of public education, college accessibility and childcare better in this country. I'm going to touch on a few of the ways they're going to get it done.
I'll start with a particularly salient area: college education. Senator Kerry's plan begins with a tax credit of up to $4,000 per year per child towards paying for college tuition. While it is not enough to cover an Amherst education, it is a huge help for many families struggling to send their children to public universities.
One of the most ambitious and exciting parts of the Kerry-Edwards plan is a National Service Corps which would help half a million new students pay for college every year. Under this plan, 200,000 students would work for two years by helping students in troubled schools, improving homeland security, building affordable housing, etc. In return, they'd gain four years of public college tuition. In addition, 300,000 students would work part time while attending school with toddlers in need of school preparation, children in need of reading skills and older students in need of help getting into college in return for help with their own college tuitions.
The best part is that the entire plan is paid for by eliminating government subsidies for banks that provide student loans, subsidies that make it easier for banks to raise rates on students. Instead, the Kerry-Edwards plan would require banks to bid at auctions for the opportunity to provide student loans, which will result in better rates for students and more than enough money to pay for the entire National Service Corps initiative.
Moving to K-12 education, the Kerry-Edwards plan both addresses problems with the Bush administration's policies and proposes dynamic new ideas. As for No Child Left Behind, President Bush has under-funded his own law by more than $27 billion during the past four years. Senator Kerry would issue new bonds and use some of the tax rollbacks on the wealthiest two percent of Americans to create a National Education Trust Fund, so that future education initiatives would not be subject to administrative or Congressional budget cuts. The plan is to add $10 billion to the Fund every year for the next 10 years, fully funding No Child Left Behind and protecting the new programs in the Kerry-Edwards plan.
Another problem with No Child Left Behind is the way it ties federal funding to overly simplistic test scores. The Kerry-Edwards plan would utilize more sophisticated tests which measure the full range of students' skills, not just how well they fill in bubbles on tests which are often skewed toward wealthier, whiter students.
Senator Kerry knows what all education experts will tell you: good teachers make all the difference in the world. To this end, the Kerry-Edwards plan would provide salary hikes of at least $5,000 to teachers taking jobs in the districts that need them most, with additional bonuses of $5,000 to teachers who specialize in under-taught subjects like math and science. The plan requires that all new teachers take more difficult entry tests than they've had to in the past, and it gives schools more leeway to fire teachers who aren't measuring up to tougher standards. The plan also creates a new program which would provide graduate school scholarships and forgive enough student loans to pay for an entire public college tuition for graduates who agree to teach for four years in a needy district.
Childcare costs have risen at twice the rate of inflation in the past four years, creating a crisis for many moderate-income families which Senator Kerry would address in two important ways. First, he would raise the childcare tax credit from $3,000 to $5,000, making the tax code closer to actual costs and putting hundreds of dollars back in the pockets of every moderate-income family with a child in daycare. Second, the Kerry-Edwards plan would create a "School's Open 'Til 6" program which would provide three and a half million kids with after-school care, reducing the number of latchkey kids and easing the financial burden on millions of families.
Thus far, I've barely mentioned the litany of problems with President Bush's education policy, which claims to stress the importance of local decision-making, but which in reality ties the hands of school boards across America and leaves millions of children without good teachers, without childcare and without the opportunity to go to college. I've now briefly explained only nine different points of the Kerry-Edwards plan, which includes comprehensive proposals for dozens of new programs and ways to pay for them.
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